Called To Remember

The plagues of Egypt where fierce.  They ravaged the land.  They ravaged the beasts of the land.  They killed the chosen first born boys of both man and beast.  Egypt in all its splendor is humbled in every area.  The Passover feast is inaugurated the night before the people of God leave Egypt.  This feast is to change the Hebrews.  It will change their calender.  It will now be the beginning, their January.  They are to be a people full of newness.  New ways to worship.  They are becoming a nation.  They are becoming a nation of priests.  God's consecration is spreading to not only the patriarachs but to what is now the whole nation of Israel.  Israel started as a promise to Abraham.  It progressed when Jacob received it as his name.  The Hebrews leave Egypt with 600, 000 men, 430 years after Joseph dies.  They are an army. They are a nation.  And they are becoming a holy nation.  The Passover feast is to a memorial.  They are to celebrate it every year.  Why?  So that they can tell the story of the Passover to their children.

This is how it worked:  get a lamb (sheep or goat), male, spotless.  Kill it but do not break any of its bones. Put its blood on your door posts and on the lintel over your table.  Do this at twilight.  Cook it in fire.  Do not cook it in water, do not eat it raw.  If your family is small, share with your neighbor.  Eat it with bitter herbs and crackers.  Be ready to travel, have your shoes on and your belt on.  Make sure that none of it left in your house in the morning.  At midnight the angel of death will come.  He will pass over any house that is marked with blood.

This feast is ending their time in slavery.  It is a new beginning.  This new beginning is entered into through blood.  Death and resurrection.  It is a new feast, a new table, a new way of life.  This feast is a foreshadowing of the nation of Israel becoming a priestly nation.  This feast is a holy feast.  The people are eating holy food. Later we learn that only the priests are able to eat the food sacrificed to the Lord.  We learn in the wilderness that the Israelite boil their meat to cook it.  Fire smokes.  This smoke rises to the heavens and God smells the sweet aroma of the sacrifices of His people.  This meal is priestly.
They are not to break the bones of the lamb when they kill it.   Why?  Who does this lamb represent?  Jesus.  Jesus' bones where not broken.  So the lamb is not to be broken.  The table of the passover is an alter.  Every house that night was a temple.  God again and again is making a statement to His people and the nations that surround them.....these are my people and I am their God and I am that I am.  God's people are to be holy.  We are holy because we worship a holy God.  We eat holy food we eat at God's table.  Israel is to remember this.  The nation of Israel is called to celebrate this feast every year to come.  She was called to remember what the Lord had done for her.  She was to remember who she was and who her God is.

What do we do with this?  We see that the table of the Lord is still where we are called to remember Him.  We meet every week at God's table and we are called to remember our God and remember what He has done.  We are to remember that the Lamb is Jesus. We are to teach these stories to our children so that they will know what the Lord has done.  And when we tell it, it makes us remember God even more.  We remember that we are a holy people, priests of the Most High God.  We act in a way that declares who we serve.  We are set apart, we are holy, we worship the God who saved the Israelites with an outstretched hand and showed His wonders in Egypt.  We remember that Jesus was slain, his blood spilled so that we could be children of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  We go to church on Sunday with open hearts and take the Lords supper with thanksgiving and joy for the work the Lord has done and is doing in our lives. We remember that we are to walk worthy of our calling.

My life is full.  Your life is full.  Remember to be full of the right things.  Remember what God has done for you.  Tell it to your children.  Rejoice and rejoice again as you call to mind God's word and God's marvelous works in your own story.  When we remember, we believe.   Forsake foolish thoughts and remember them no more.  We need to make sure that we remember the right things.   If your faith is weak, remember what God has done.  Recount the stories in the bible. May we all be found remembering our God more this week and tell these stories to our children so that we will remember the great works our Lord has done for us!